Exponential Improvements in SmallSat Technology Jenny Barna! Launch Manager, Spire!
[email protected] Spire’s Beginnings • Founded in 2012 as Nanosatisfi to launch cubesats with Arduino educational payloads! • Headquarters in San Francisco, CA! • Launched first crowd-funded satellite in 2013! • Rebranded to Spire in 2014 (Spire Global, Inc) 2 Spire Today • Raised $25M Series A (2014)! • Opened offices in Singapore, Glasgow! • Team of 40+ and growing! • Remote sensing payloads! • Global AIS ship tracking! • GPS-RO weather data ! • Ardusat-Spire educational partnership 3 Spire’s Launch History 4 satellites launched to date:! ! • ArduSat-1, ArduSat-X (1U)! August 2013! H-IIB/ISS! ! • ArduSat-2 (2U)! January 2014! Antares/ISS! ! • LEMUR-1 (3U) - operational June 2014! Dnepr 4 The TechnologyThe Technology The platform" • 3U cubesat! • Designed & manufactured by Spire • Leverages COTS hardware! • In-house software development! ! The constellation! • 20 satellites in orbit by end of 2015" • 100+ satellites in orbit in 3 years" • Variety of altitudes (500-700 km)" • Variety of inclinations" • Unprecedented coverage, revisit time 5 SmallSats:! Because we’ve come a long way since the 80’s. 6 HistoryMoore’s RepeatingLaw - Consumer Itself Electronics(Moore’s Law) 10x lighter! 1990 10x cheaper! 2015 100x more capable Mac IIfx Cost: $10,000! MacBook Air Cost: $1000! Weight: 24 pounds! Weight: < 3 pounds! Memory: 16 MB! Memory: 4 GB! Processor: 40 MHz Processor:1.4 GHz 7 HistoryMoore’s RepeatingLaw - Spacecraft Itself Sensors(Moore’s Law) 1000x ! price/performance improvement 5g (cubesat shop) TNO Digital Sun Sensor, 475g 2012 2006 8 Moore’sCubesat Law Technology - Cubesats Shift Memory Power Bandwidth 9 Easier,Launch More Opportunity Frequent Access Shift to Space 2000 2015 ULA launches costed about an average of $225 Spaceflight’s first SHERPA fully booked with Million, and were almost exclusively sold to the US SmallSats.